Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘TV Guide’ and ‘Cascadio’
Puzzle day
TV Guide is a strange little browser game created by Llewelyn ‘NylePudding’ Griffiths, an indie dev in Sweden that we saw previously back on page 25 with River Tiles (which some may remember was my favourite game from the page). This time we are not doing puzzles in a traditional sense, but relaxing and watching some good ol-fashion TV.
Unexpectedly, this is a puzzle game where players attempt to find what is interactable on screen to continue the TV program. Each program has players clicking on parts of the TV, watching as the art morphs in to something new to ‘progress’ the story and the puzzle until there is nothing left to click. Once this occurs, players can press on the button to change channels, and go to the next one.
I put this game in the ‘I have to explain that this is a game’ category, as at first glance many may discount it as just some jarring experience. For me it’s a fun little escapade in to what makes TV channels and commercials strange as they alternate between the confusing and the hilarious. The animations are morphing as if to mold the channel out of clay as it goes rather than a clean showcase of the actual thing on TV.
I can’t really say much else for it, as its an experience that you’ll have to look at for yourself if you want to understand it.
Cascadio is a puzzle game created by Studio Bakajo, an indie duo based in the USA. Players will be attempting to connect the hexagons together to string numbers along, trying to get all of the numbers to line up in perfect harmony.
To get these numbers to line up, players will be connecting the hexagons through a string of ‘lines’ by dragging one hexagon to another to connect them. This then adds the number from the original hexagon to the one that is being connected.
For example, if two hexagons have 1s in them, connecting them will leave one of the hexagons at one, while the pointed-to one is now a 2. Everything is additive, and multiple hexagons can all ‘point’ to the same hexagon to add up even more.
The picture above might not be that helpful in highlighting the connections, but the numbers in the top left are. These are the goals that players strive for, to ensure that every hexagon matches that number in their respective hexagon.
Once accomplished, the small number goes away, as is seen by the lack of a number in the top left of the ‘1’ hexagon. Have every hexagon reach its desired number, and a lovely cinematic showing the entire process appears. The key here is my lack of use of the word ‘all’, as not every hexagon is needed to finish a puzzle; many, in fact, do not.
This is where the puzzling part kicks in, as players will have to identify where they can connect and which ones are best left alone or unneeded. It reminded me of other number-heavy logic puzzles like Sudokus as approaching the smallest numbers or most obvious/easy ‘paths’ would help to eliminate the more confusing routes. If there are no other options for a certain path, eliminate it from the board to avoid unnecessary confusion.
Unlike Sudoku, however, there is rarely only a single path — since so many numbers are connected to each other, there are slight variations to how players approach the connections that can give way to unique solutions. There are more ‘optimal’ solutions, but where is the fun in that?
Cascadio is a tricky one for me, because like many puzzles the mileage you’ll get out if it solely relies on how ‘easy’ or ‘hard’ you find number/logic puzzles that rely on space. As an interface it works phenomenally with mobile (you can definitely can tell it was designed with finger dragging in mind), although I will say that the lack of a hard ‘reset’ did lead to some strange interactions. You only need to see the first picture and my confusion as to how ‘undo’ did all of that.
If you adore puzzles that utilize space and logic with numbers then this might be an instant grab for you, especially thanks to its mobile foundation. Try it out first and see how you like it.
